Well done to everyone who has been trying to guess the famous band behind this year’s song on our social media channels. We are very excited to announce that this year’s sign2sing song is . . . ‘Greatest Day’ by Take That!

All of the videos and resources will be available on the sign2sing website in September 2018. Register now to be the first to know when they are available. We can’t wait to start practising, we are sure that sign2sing is going to be the greatest yet!

SignHealth is very excited to announce the launch of our new Online Psychological Therapy service.

Over the years SignHealth has provided psychological therapies to hundreds of Deaf people. The team provides assessments and a full range of support including; counselling for depression and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy at Step 2 and Step 3 (High Intensity Therapy). All therapists are Deaf or fluent in British Sign Language, qualified and registered to professional bodies such as the BACP (British Association for Counselling Professionals).

By taking the service online it means we can now reach far more Deaf people across the country in a more efficient and convenient way. In addition to providing online talking therapy, SignHealth is also launching a a BSL Computerised CBT programme focused on anxiety.

More information will be available very soon. In the meantime if you have any questions please e-mail *protected email*. Alternately you can look at the psychological therapy section on our website to find out more about therapy in general.

On 4th April 2018 SignHealth jointly hosted a ‘Hard of Hearing’ preview of the film Wonderstruck at Curzon Soho, in partnership with Studiocanal and Curzon Cinemas. The event marked the official launch of Curzon Cinemas’ regular programme of screenings accessible to D/deaf and Hard of Hearing audiences.

Wonderstruck
From visionary director Todd Haynes, and based on the book by Brian Selznick, Wonderstruck is an enchanting story of discovery and belonging, starring Julian Moore, Michelle Williams and newcomers Oakes Fegley and Millicent Simmonds.

Ben (Oakes Fegley) and Rose (Millicent Simmonds) are two deaf children from very different eras who secretly wish their lives were different. Ben longs for the father he has never known, while Rose dreams of a mysterious actress. When Ben discovers a puzzling clue in his home and Rose reads an enticing headline in the newspaper, both children set out on quests of self-discovery.

On 25th February 2018 Wayne Barrow undertook an incredible challenge to raise money for SignHealth – 12 hours non-stop exercise. His coach, Clinton Slater, pushed Wayne through a relentless series of activities, including medicine ball lifts, pushups and distance running.

Despite the cold weather Wayne pressed on and completed all 12 hours, which is a fantastic achievement. Wayne visited SignHealth head office on Monday (photo below) and we are very happy to announce that in total Wayne’s challenge raised £1,096.71!

If you are interested in undertaking a fundraising challenge then please get in touch with our Fundraising Team – *protected email*.

For further images and videos from the challenge, please see Wayne’s Facebook page. Photo credit: Chanel Welton.

The amazing Portsmouth Music Hub really embraced sign2sing this year. They produced this wonderful video showing people from across the city signing this year’s song. It looks as if everyone got involved! Well done to all who took part. And a big thanks to the Music Hub for making it happen.

Between June and August 2017 SignHealth were chosen to be part of the Waitrose Online Community Matters scheme.

Customers were asked to choose a charity to support and an overwhelming 73,063 chose SignHealth!

This means that Waitrose have donated an incredible £12,398 to SignHealth.

This donation will enable us to help people like Simone, a profoundly Deaf mother trapped in an abusive relationship.

Communicating in British Sign Language, our specially trained staff have helped Simone and her child escape a very dangerous situation. We have helped the family to find a safe place to live and are also providing Simone with specialist therapy in sign language. With our help Simone has been able to rebuild her life and we will continue to support her.

On 25th August Sean Lucas, Michael Woods and Todd Garner (3 Deaf friends known as The Summit Seekers) will be raising money for SignHealth by doing the National Three Peaks Challenge. They will be climbing Ben Nevis in Scotland, Scafell Pike in England and Snowdon in Wales – all in 24 hours!

All 3 of the team are really looking forward to the challenge, Michael Woods (in the centre of the video above) said:

“We have climbed 5 summits in just a day to help prepare ourselves for the 3 peak challenge. We have been training hard for months. We also climbed Ben Lomond, Tryfan, Glyder fawr, Skiddaw and Helvellyn this year as part of our training.

We plan to do the PGY track next in the dark so that we can better our skills and pace in darkness.

We wanted to support Sign Health because we know how important this charity is to enable more awareness of Deaf people accessing health services. As the 3 of us are Deaf, with lots of deaf friends and also family we understand much more how hard it is to access a lot of the services that hearing people can easily access. This is why we wanted to use our journey to help support your charity.

We will be doing a lot of fundraising over the years and we will always support your charity. We also aim to climb Mount Everest summit in the future and would love to continue supporting SignHealth right through to our ultimate goal. In the meantime we will still be undertaking other challenges too.”

It is an exciting time at SignHealth as we continue to build on the Sick of It report’s success and our work on improving access. With a new chief executive, the organisation is refreshing its strategy and enhancing its governance, to allow us to continue growing our services in a more sustainable, efficient, and powerful way. As we enter this exciting phase, we need a new high-calibre Chair and a number of dynamic, diverse, and youthful trustees.

We are keen to hear from people with a track record within social care, health, income generation, advocacy, marketing and communications, or diversity and inclusion. We are also very keen to have more Deaf people on the Board.

To be successful as Chair, you will be a natural leader with strong strategic experience and a track record of board development. As a Trustee, you will have a strong understanding of governance within the not for profit, public, or private sector.

Please visit the link in the description to find out more about these opportunities and to apply. If you are keen to play a strategic role in our development and believe that your experience will help us deliver our vision, we look forward to hearing from you.

In March 2017 we were awarded a Wandsworth Community Grant of £7,080, to help support young Deaf people living in the area.

This funding is enabling the Young DeafHope team to provide educational/preventative workshop sessions about domestic abuse, for Deaf young people through signed/accessible information, at OakLodge school, Deaf Units at hearing schools and Deaf clubs in Wandsworth. The workshops aim to help break the cycle of abuse through specialist support for victims and by providing vital information about how to recognise the risks. In addition, accessible information materials and on-line resources will be created for Deaf children to access. We are in the process of creating a new Young DeafHope webpage and hope to publish this shortly. You can find out more about the Wandsworth Community Grant Fund on their website.

In April 2017 SignHealth were awarded £49,150 by the Comic Relief Tech for Good Fund.

This grant will be used to help us set up the UK’s first integrated online psychological therapy provision for deaf sign language users needing support to manage their depression and anxiety. This is an extension to our existing BSL Healthy Minds service and will enable service users to access a full-trained, signing therapist regardless of their location.

The website is currently under construction and we hope to launch it in August. You can find out more about Tech for Good on the Comic Relief website.

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Well done to everyone who has been trying to guess the famous band behind this year’s song on our social media channels. We are very excited to announce that this year's sign2sing song is . . . … read more >>